Daoism also recognizes the movus non movus of Plato. In the Declaration of Independence, a similar recognition occurs. That is, 'it is possible to intuit the existence of an ultimate substratum that is the source of all things.' (Brittanica on tao).
What is interesting is that the Greek philosphers look upon man's relationship to Nature as a "Me-it" relationship rather than an "I-Thou" relationship, which permits experimentation.
I read an article on Noah's prophecy for his three sons. Very briefly, Ham was the inventor and mainly interested in power. Discovered and inhabited most of the world. Semitic people have tended to lay the emphasis on the search for righteousness, the Japhetic or Indo-European peoples have laid the emphasis on the search for understanding, and the Hamitic people have searched for power. All men are religious to some extent and the nature of their gods tends to reflect something of their own personal goals. The gods of the Semites, and preeminently the God of Israel, rewarded conduct that was righteous. This is true of Judaism, Islam, and, of course, Christianity. But to a large extent it is also true of that form of paganism which, deriving its source of inspiration from the Babylonians and Assyrians (both of whom were Semitic), subsequently spread in modified forms far beyond the confines of its original home in Mesopotamia. The extent to which this pagan religion underlies the religious beliefs of many non-Christian people is remarkably revealed by A. Hislop in his well-known book The Two Babylons. (16) The gods of the early Indo-Europeans were gods of light, but this light was not moral light but rather the illumination of the mind or understanding. The gods of the Hamites were gods of power, in fact - in the absence of the moral component - were gods of ruthlessness, demanding appropriate sacrifices.
An earlier edition of Everyman's Encyclopedia, under "Philosophy," had this to say:
It was not until man sought wisdom for its own sake [their emphasis] and with no religious or other motives, that he philosophized in the true sense, and the previous theogonies, cosmogonies, etc., cannot strictly claim the title of philosophy.
For to the Greeks it was almost a sin even to be tempted to seek any practical application of their ideas.
The contribution of Japheth has been in the application of philosophy to technology, leading to the consequent development of the Scientific Method.
As the application of Japheth's philosophy to the technology of Ham produced science, so the application of his philosophy to the religious insights of Shem produced theology. The Hamitic people never developed science and the Semitic people did not develop theology, until the influence of Japhetic philosophy was brought to bear. In keeping with this thought and the remark made previously by Jessie Bernard, it is striking to realize that the theology of Paul was addressed to the Gentiles by a man who had deliberately turned his back upon contemporary orthodox Judaism.
In the family of Noah, Shem is given priority, Ham comes second, and Japheth is last. This order may well be intended to underline an important truth. Man's spiritual needs are pre-eminent, and his physical needs are next. His intellectual needs are last. History indicates that this was the order of development. And historically, as Lord Raglan has pointed out, the expression of man's religious nature came first and led, in due course, to technological development. Philosophy, the contribution of Japheth, came relatively very late in history.
The demands of the body cannot be neglected. Since the time of the Flood, the major contribution toward meeting these demands has been rendered by the family of Ham. Virtually no people have managed to survive without finding some way of satisfying their spiritual and physical needs. Many societies have survived without philosophy - which indicates that, in a sense, the contribution of the family of Japheth is least important of all. Nevertheless, this contribution is directly responsible for the extension of the first two into other categories of experience - religious belief into theology, and technology into science.
It seems, therefore, that overemphasis of man's spiritual life will not lead to a high civilization but tends rather in the opposite direction. The corollary is also true. Overemphasis of man's intellectual life or physical needs has the same detrimental effects. For centuries, the dominant social classes in India concentrated on the intellectual life of man to the neglect of the spiritual and physical components, with the consequent impoverishment of the whole man. In the New World we are in danger of allowing the material to dominate the spiritual - by too great an insistence on the value of technical education to the exclusion of philosophy and theology.
-- This was snipped up pretty badly. The text is here custance.org
I find it interesting, though somewhat simplified. |
